GRAMMARDOG SAMPLE EXERCISES PARTS OF SPEECH Lord of the Flies by William Golding Identify the parts of speech in the following sentences. Label the underlined words: Verb Preposition Noun Pronoun Adjective Interjection Adverb Conjunction 1. The fair boy was peering at the reef through screwed-up eyes. Verb Preposition Noun Pronoun Interjection Conjunction 2. Ralph stood, one hand against a grey trunk, and screwed up his eyes against the shimmering water. Verb Preposition Noun Pronoun Interjection Conjunction 3. He jumped down from the terrace. Verb Preposition Noun Pronoun Interjection Conjunction 4. The fat boy lowered himself over the terrace and sat down carefully, using the edge as a seat. Verb Preposition Noun Pronoun Interjection Conjunction PROOFREADING: SPELLING, CAPITALIZATION, PUNCTUATION The Call of the Wild by Jack London Read the following passage and decide which type of error, if any, appears in each underlined section. ALERT: Before answering each question, look back at the entire passage. Note where sentences begin and end, where quotation marks begin and end, where questions begin and end, and where a series begins and ends. Always double-check. 1
PASSAGE 1 Spelling Capitalization Punctuation No Error Buck saw money pass between (1) them, and was not surprised when curly, a good-natured (2) newfoundland, and he were led away by the (3) little weazened man. That was the last he saw of the man in the red swaeter, and as Curly and he (4) looked at receding Seattle from, the deck of the (5) narwhal, it was the last he saw of the warm (6) Southland. 1. Buck saw money pass between Spelling Punctuation Capitalization No error 2. not surprised when curly, a good-natured Spelling Punctuation Capitalization No error 3. newfoundland, and he were led away by the Spelling Punctuation Capitalization No error 4. the man in the red swaeter, and as Curly and he Spelling Punctuation Capitalization No error SIMPLE, COMPOUND, AND COMPLEX SENTENCES The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Label each of the following sentences: Simple Complex Compound Compound Complex 1. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. Simple Complex Compound Compound Complex 2. When we was passing by the kitchen, I fell over a root and made a noise. Simple Complex Compound Compound Complex 2
3. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. Simple Complex Compound Compound Complex 4. He used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain t been seen in these parts for a year or more. Simple Complex Compound Compound Complex COMPLEMENTS Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare Identify the complements in each of the following sentences. Label the underlined words: Direct Object Predicate Adjective Indirect Object Object of Preposition Predicate Nominative 1. Beware the ides of March. Predicate Adjective Indirect Object Object of Preposition 2. Vexed I am of late with passions of some difference, conceptions only proper to myself, which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors... Predicate Adjective Indirect Object Object of Preposition 3. Calpurnia s cheek is pale, and Cicero looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes as we have seen him in the Capitol, being crossed in conference by some senators. Predicate Adjective Indirect Object Object of Preposition 4. Who offered him the crown? Predicate Adjective Indirect Object Object of Preposition 3
PHRASES Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Minister s Black Veil Identify the phrases in each of the following sentences. Label the underlined words: Participle Preposition Appositive Gerund Infinitive 1. The first glimpse of the clergyman s figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons. Participle Appositive Infinitive Gerund Preposition 2. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness... Participle Appositive Infinitive Gerund Preposition 3. Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door... Participle Appositive Infinitive Gerund Preposition 4. But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Participle Appositive Infinitive Gerund Preposition VERBALS: GERUNDS, INFINITIVES, AND PARTICIPLES Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Identify the underlined verbals and verbal phrases in the following sentences: Gerund Participle Infinitive Also indicate the usage of the verbal by labeling the word or phrase: Subject Adjective Direct Object Adverb Predicate Nominative Object of Preposition 1. Chokings and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with anxiety of those I love. Gerund Participle Infinitive Object of Preposition 4
2. Having made this lunatic confession, I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some thoughts of following it. Gerund Participle Infinitive Object of Preposition 3. This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be devoted to her. Gerund Participle Infinitive Object of Preposition 4. Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. Gerund Participle Infinitive Object of Preposition CLAUSES Walden by Henry David Thoreau Indicate how clauses are used in the sentences below. Label the clauses: Subject Adverb Direct Object Predicate Nominative Adjective Object of Preposition 1. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again. Object of Preposition 2. Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. Object of Preposition 3. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. Object of Preposition 5
4. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India. Object of Preposition STYLE: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE Moby Dick by Herman Melville Identify the figurative language in the following sentences. Label the underlined words or phrases: Personification Metaphor Simile Onomatopoeia 1. Posted like silver sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Personification Metaphor Simile Onomatopeia 2. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Personification Metaphor Simile Onomatopeia 3. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jeweled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! Personification Metaphor Simile Onomatopeia 4. For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. Personification Metaphor Simile Onomatopeia STYLE: POETIC DEVICES The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Identify the poetic devices in the following sentences by labeling the underlined words: Assonance Repetition Consonance Rhyme Alliteration 1. The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, merrily did we drop below the kirk, below the hill, below the lighthouse top. 6
Assonance Consonance Repetition Rhyme 2. And he shone bright, and on the right went down into the sea. Assonance Repetition Consonance Rhyme 3. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free. Assonance Repetition Consonance Rhyme 4. And we did speak only to break the silence of the sea! Assonance Repetition Consonance Rhyme STYLE: SENSORY IMAGERY Hound of the Baskervilles by Charles Dickens Identify the sensory imagery in the following sentences. Label the underlined words: Sight Taste Touch Sound Smell 1. He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen, gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Sight Taste Touch Sound Smell 2. He leaned back, put his fingertips together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial expression. Sight Taste Touch Sound Smell 3. As I entered, however, my fears were set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco which took me by the throat and set me coughing. Sight Taste Touch Sound Smell 4. My body has remained in this armchair and has, I regret to observe, consumed in my absence two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco. Sight Taste Touch Sound Smell 7
STYLE: ALLUSIONS Tess of the D Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Identify the allusions in the following sentences. Label the underlined words: Historical Literary Mythological Folklore/Superstition Religious 1. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright s yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. Historical Religious Folklore/Superstition Mythological Literary 2. He would become an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted and ring-straked, his menservants and his maids. Historical Religious Folklore/Superstition Mythological Literary 3. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names half teasingly, which she did not like because she did not understand them. Historical Religious Folklore/Superstition Mythological Literary 4. Though not cold-natured, he was rather bright than hot less Byronic than Shelleyan; could love desperately, but with a love more especially inclined to the imaginative and ethereal... Historical Religious Folklore/Superstition Mythological Literary STYLE: LITERARY ANALYSIS SELECTED PASSAGE 1 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Read the following passage (From Chapter I) the first time through for meaning. Read the passage a second time, marking figurative language, sensory imagery, poetic devices, and any other patterns of diction and rhetoric, then answer the questions below. 1 A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men 2 advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, 3 balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept 4 time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and 5 the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, 6 the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar 7 on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights 8 swung between them, rhythmically clinking. Another report from the cliff 9 made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a 10 continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by 8
11 no stretch of imagination be called enemies. They were called criminals, 12 and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an 13 insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meager breasts panted together, 14 the violently dilated nostrils quivered, the eyes stared stonily uphill. They 15 passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete 15 deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind this raw matter one of 16 the reclaimed, the product of the new forces at work, strolled 17 despondently, carrying a rifle by its middle. He had a uniform jacket with 18 one button off, and seeing a white man on the path, hoisted his weapon to 19 his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men being so 20 much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be. He was 21 speedily reassured, and with a large, white, rascally grin, and a glance at 22 his charge, seemed to take me into partnership in his exalted trust. After 23 all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings. 1. The underlined words in Lines 4 and 5 are an example of... Assonance Consonance c 2. Lines 5 and 6 contain examples of... Metaphor Simile Personification 3. Lines 12 and 13 contain examples of... metaphor and simile analogy and metaphor simile and analogy 4. All of the following lines are parallel in meaning EXCEPT... and all were connected together (Line 7) All their meager breasts panted together (Line 13) white men being so alike at a distance (Line 19-20) seemed to take me into partnership (Line 22) 9